Nigel Farage has been accused of dismissing "racist" comments made by Ukip members as excusable because the culprits were a bit drunk.
The Ukip leader was taking part in a EU referendum TV debate on Friday afternoon hosted by BuzzFeed UK and Facebook.
He was heckled by some members of the audience unhappy at his tactics in the referendum campaign.
And Farage was quizzed on why he had to exclude members in the past for for making sexist, homophobic and racist comments.
Farage told the audience in central-London said people should not overreact when "Ukip people, who coming back form the pub after one too many, said stupid, or at times abusive or abrasive things".
One member of the audience, who like Farage is backing 'Leave', said the Ukip leader was "fuelling hatred for his party" by defending the actions of some of his members.
"To stand there and say 'when some of our party members have come back after a few too many drinks and say something stupid'.
"People have been kicked out of your party for sexist comments, racist comments, that's not one two many drinks, that's down right disgusting."
She said: "I'm voting to Leave, I am in the same camp as you in term of my position of the EU."
“Ukip people, who coming back form the pub after one too many, said stupid, or at times abusive or abrasive things”
- Nigel Farage
Farage said Ukip had been "demonised" by the media and the establishment who were "scared of a different argument".
"When we have had people who have said things that are offensive, do you know what we have done? We have kicked them out."
And he said there had been a "deliberate attempt" to paint euroscepticism and Ukip as "racist, homophobic and anti-foreign".
He said: "None of it, absolutely none of it, was ever true."
Farage was also grilled on whether he was personally responsible for the Brexit campaign being associated with racism. But he insisted there was "nothing racist or xenophobic" about wanting to leave the EU.